What's a Ranger?

Rough and wild looking, a human stalks alone thraugh the shadows of trees, hunting the orcs he knows are planning a raid on a nearby farm, Clutching a shortsword in each hand, he becomes a whirlwind of steel, cutting down one enemy after another.

After tumbling away from a cone of freezing air, an elf finds her feet and draws back her bow to loose an arrow aI the white dragon. Shrugging off the wave of fear that emanates from the dragon like the cold of its breath, she sends one arrow after another to find the gaps between the dragon's thick scales.

Holding his hand high, a half-elf whistles to the hawk that circles high above him, calling the bird back to his side. Whispering instructions in Elvish, he points to the owlbear he's been tracking and sends the hawk to distract the creature while he readies his bow.
Far from the bustle of cities and towns, past the hedges that shelter the most distant farms from the terrors of the wild, amid the dense-packed trees of trackless forests and across wide and empty plains, rangers keep their unending watch.

Equipment

Choose: scalemail or leather armor

Choose: two shortswords or two simple melee weapons

Choose: a dungeoneer's pack or an explorer's pack

A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows

Quick Build

You can make a ranger quickly by following these suggestions. First, make Dexterity your highest ability score, followed by Wisdom. (Some rangers who focus on two-weapon fighting make Strength higher than Dexterity.) Second, choose the outlander background.

Favored Enemy

Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy. Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestiais, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies. Vou have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at alI. Vou choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th leveI. As you gain leveis, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.

Natural Explorer

Vou are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in. While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits: Difticult terrain doesn't slow your group's traveI. Your group can't become lost except by magical means. Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. Vou choose additional favored terra in types aI 6th and 10th leveI.

Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. Vou can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.

Archery: Vou gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

Defense: While you are wearing armor, you gain a +I bonus to AC.

Dueling: When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd levei, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell Iist.

Spell Slots
The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st leveI and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's leveI or higher. Vou regain ali expended spell slots when you finish a long rest. For example, if you know the 1st-levei spell animal friendship and have a 1st-levei and a 2nd-leveI spell slot available, you can cast animal friendship using either slot.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher
Vou know two 1st-levei spells ofyour choice from the ranger spelllist. The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a levei for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 5th levei in this c1ass, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd leveI. Additionally, when you gain a levei in this c1ass, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spelllist, which also must be of a leveI for which you have spell slots.

Ranger Archetype

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate: Hunter or Beast Master, both detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 11th, and 15th level.

Primeval Awareness

Beginning at 3rd levei, you can use your action and expend one ranger spell slot to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per leveI of the spell slot you expend, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terra in): aberrations, celestiais, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn't reveal the creatures' location or number.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th levei, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levei, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th leveI, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Land's Stride

Starting at 8th leveI, moving through nonmagical difficult terra in costs you no extra movement. Vou can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if
they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard. In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such those created by the entangle spell.

Hide in Plain Sight

Starting at 10th leveI, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. Vou must have access to fresh mud, dirt. plants. soot. and other naturally occurring materiaIs with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. Vou gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.

Vanish

Starting at 14th levei, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turno AIso, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.

Feral Senses

At 18th levei, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can't see. When you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.
You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn't hidden from you and you aren't blinded or deafened.

Foe Slayer

At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

"You have seen the draw?" Montolio asked. The owl responded with a whoo, then went off into a complicated series of chattering hoots and whoas. Montolio took it all in, weighing every detail. With the help of his friends, particularly this wrath or talkative owl, the ranger had monitored the drow for several days, curious as to why a dark elf had wandered into the valley. At first, Montolio had assumed that the drow was somehow connected to Graul, the chief ore of the region, but as time went on, the ranger began to suspect differently."- R.A. Salvatore, Sojourn